The period of this year’s Euromoney Awards for Excellence, covering almost exactly the complete market cycle of the pandemic, exposed the need for an investment bank franchise to be unusually adaptable if it was to serve clients over that period.
The best would, from the very start of the period, be able to get their own remote operations functioning in short order and guide clients through the immediate concerns of survival. This would demand a rapid assessment of which market windows were opening and closing. But as conditions changed, often in the blink of an eye, the best would also be called upon to spot strategic, often aggressive, opportunities for clients.
Morgan Stanley showed the way to meet these challenges with aplomb and wins this year’s award for the US’s best investment bank.
Tom Miles, co-head of Americas M&A, sums up the challenge.